I was also fortunate enough to be in the possession of a newly minted driving license and semi-regular use of my dads bottle-green Vauxhall Corsa. When anxiety crept through my veins, cruel words skittered around my brain or sadness started seeping through my thin skin; I had a solution. I would get in my car armed with a teetering tower of cassette tapes. I would drive, and I would drive, and I would drive. As I travelled further from my stifling attic bedroom and out into the wider world, I wouldn’t stop until I had put enough distance between myself and whatever had got me tied in knots.

I only had a car for two sweet years of spontaneous 2am trips to service stations, daring the boys at college to ‘race’ (cheers Ryan Gosling) ordering a hundred McDonalds Apple Pies through the drive-through window and the myriad of novelty car-uses you can find in the heady days before full-time employment and any sort of responsibility. Then I moved away for university and my name was removed from the insurance policy, never to return.

Since then I’ve never lived anywhere that would warrant having a car. Cut to… actually let’s not count the years as there are many; I have settled in a city that is defined by just that. Whilst it’s an urban myth that it’s ‘impossible’ to live in Los Angeles without car, it certainly makes it easier to navigate the 503 square miles of city. After not driving for so long, I had to start the process pretty much from scratch. Muscle memory isn’t too reliable when you learnt using manual gears, and driving on the opposite side of the road. It’s like viewing everything in a mirror and my first year here has been dominated by sweaty palms and second guessing if I’m really on the right (wrong) side of the road or not. I also had to take a test to legally drive with a state issued driving license. 17 is the perfect age to revise road theory and take long Sunday lessons with patient parents. 32, plunged into a foreign country with a full-time job, is not the perfect age to revise road theory that refers to the British ‘pavement’, as sidewalk and the British ‘road’ as… pavement. Confused? Welcome to my world. It’s also not the perfect age to practise driving on your precious weekends when you could be at the beach or the mountains or doing something that doesn’t fill you with the sinking suspicion that everyone is trying to kill you.

But, as I ticked over into my thirteenth month here I took my practical test and passed. Highlights included my examiner asking me to point out where the window defroster was (there is no frost in LA, ever) and the part where practically the whole test route was dug up for roadworks and the nice chap barely seemed to know where he was going, let alone how to instruct me. Oh and I got tooted three times by drivers who didn’t appreciate my ‘actual stop’ at the red diamond signs, far preferring the iconic ‘California roll.’

On Friday night, I was home alone. Nick was out of town. I was battling the germs that come along with the first rain of the year, because I am a soft Angeleno these days. I was feeling gloomy. And then I was in the driving seat before I knew it. And I drove, and I drove, and I drove. The sky above me was water colour blooms of burnt, bronze and blush. Neon signs, twinkling headlights and sparkles in the sky that could be stars or planes or something else entirely. Silhouettes of birds, and the metro rumbling over head. It’s truly impossible to feel lonely when you’re in LA traffic. The comfort of person after person making their own way in the world, but on the same stretch of road as you.

I may have switched skylines from the mill chimneys of Bradford to the palm trees of California… but I’m so happy to have rediscovered the peace that can be found in a dusky drive to nowhere, anywhere and everywhere.

Tonight, for the first time in over a year, I felt the urge to write. To sit down with a candle burning, Bon Iver playing and to type my heart and brain into this blank space until it started to make sense to me, and I guess, to you.

That process, in itself, proved to be a pretty accurate comparison for how I am feeling. I go to log on and can’t remember what the URL is to even access my blog CMS. I panic. I realise the URL from my designer lays in an old hotmail inbox that I haven’t logged into for over a year. I try to log on, and I don’t know the password. So after 15 minutes of frustrating faffing with codes sent to UK mobile phone numbers I no longer have, and even more archaic ‘back-up’ email addresses, I reset the password. The inbox is frozen in time. The last email received was the day of my wedding, which feels so impossibly long ago. The recent-message-list is peppered with shipping company chasers, ‘deep clean’ flat quotes and a reservation reminder for a leaving dinner at my favourite London tapas restaurant. Hotmail welcomes me as Miss Barker, and of course that’s not me at all anymore. I finally find the buried treasure URL I’m looking for in a 2011 email chain, and then… I try the only 4 passwords I can imagine I used, and am instantly locked out. Too many failed log-in attempts. Please try again in 20 minutes. By this point I am hot with rage at the tediousness of how something that used to be second nature, that used to be so me, could now be unobtainable.

I’m finally here and I feel like the virtual riddles of ‘old me’ versus ‘new me’ from the last hour pretty aptly sum up the effect that moving 5437 miles across the world has had on my mentality. I’ve become fractured into two versions of myself, and it’s only tonight that I have put my finger on that. And realised that it doesn’t have to be that way.

Moving to Los Angeles is obviously an opportunity of a life-time and there isn’t a day that I don’t feel incredibly hashtag-blessed hashtag-grateful that this California Dream happened to me. To a girl that grew up in Bradford, didn’t even step foot on an aeroplane until she was 18 years old, and has stumbled from city to city, room to flat to room, never quite finding anywhere that felt like home. However in true Hollywood style, the highs of been high and the lows have been low. I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s the hardest thing I have done in my whole life and that I was woefully unprepared for that when I signed the contract and shipped out on my LA adventure. There was an additional factor in the tough-stuff in that I had also spent all my time leading up to the move, planning a wedding. It was worth every second, but I feel like the big-life-happenings of the past two years have left absolutely no breathing space for me being me. And I almost haven’t. I’ve got my head down, gritted my teeth, put my nose to the grindstone and all the other turns of phrase about body parts. I’m not saying I’ve been a hermit because you have probably followed me on Instagram or the YouTube videos and seen the sunsets, the weekends away, the cocktails and the galavanting. What I am saying though is that I haven’t quite known who I am in those situations and unless you’ve transplanted yourself into a whole new world then it probably sounds bizarre. In the same way I find it peculiar that 2016 has so far been both the happiest and toughest years of my life.

To better illustrate what I mean; tonight I found a box that still hadn’t been unpacked from our shipping delivery. It was full of dusty unloved vinyl that I bought on a whim in 2004 and have never owned a record player since. But recently we bought a dinky sky-blue one, so I greedily dug them all out and played them one after another after another after another. The soundtrack to such a specific period of my life had me slow dancing to myself around my apartment; evoking such strong memories of damp leaves in Leeds’ Hyde Park as I traipsed from university lecture halls to my bar maid job. My attic bedroom in my Hessle house-share. The nights out with sticky floors, the obsessive friendships, the walks of shame as the sun rose and the birds started to sing, the stubborn self-confidence that you can only muster when you’re yet to even begin to figure life out. The experience was so jarring on so many levels. Firstly, the brief transportation back to a decade old version of my life. Secondly, I realise I have barely listened to music since I moved. Instead I listen to podcasts obsessively, finding comfort in the company of faceless voices discussing wrongful convictions and folklore and 1920’s Hollywood scandals and how to Lean In to my career that fill my brain and prevent it from wandering anywhere. My consciousness is filled with shiny-new disposable stuff, and kept at arms length from music that might send nostalgia flooding into my world that is so far from the one I’d be reminded of.

This is so hard to articulate and I imagine you’re reading this with a healthy dose of side-eye by this point. Perhaps what I am feeling is what it is to grow up, and by removing myself from the places that I did grown up – the change is impossible to ignore and more dramatic? For the past two years I think I’ve pretty much denied myself access to ‘past’ me, as it has been so crucial to focus on this new life I’m hastily building. I don’t have the same solar system of family and friends here who know me so well they can see through any ‘I’m-fine’ bravado; of which there has been plenty lately. They are on a different time-zone. We are trying our best with exotic stamp-marked snail mail, army-mission planned Skype calls and the holy grail: transatlantic visits! But there are times when it’s 7pm on a Friday night and I feel melancholy and it’s 3am for them and the loneliness is crushing. I send my SOS texts but I know they will only be answered when I have finally fallen asleep, and by then it’ll be a new sunny day in LA and most likely, I’ll be feeling chirpier and keener to focus on new news than my wallowing.

I have put an unreasonable and unattainable amount of pressure on myself to enjoy every second of life in LA. I’ve felt incapable of putting my hands up and saying this is really bloody hard work sometimes. I’ve felt it would be a failure to admit it’s a challenge. I’ve felt that so many people would love to be in my position that I have to suck it up and put on a brave face. When actually, that builds barriers and only puts double the distance between me and the people in my life; both old and new. I think the break through I had today is that I absolutely need to be all versions of me. I need to remember everything that has bought me on the journey to a point where I am sat in America, surrounded by those things I traipsed from room to flat to room, and with a snoring rescue pup warming my feet.

I guess I wanted to say, I am okay – but at times I have been very much not okay. Leaving behind everything you know and adapting to a new culture, a new job, a new city and a new status as somebody’s wife is bound to be a stretch. Just doing one of those could cause a tailspin, so climbing a mountain of them was bound to create a noticeable shift. It’s taught me so much though, and I am proud of the fact that a year on I am finally shifting gears into a new phase. I am comfortable in my own skin. I am confident about the dynamics I need, and those that the distance is actually benefitting. I am in awe of my inspiring husband, who has ridden his fair share of rollercoaster dips and dives in this past year too but continues to make my wellbeing his priority.

I am adapting to a quality of life that will allow me to listen to records, to wake up to catch the sunrise, to feel the sand between my toes and to stitch together the pre-LA and the post-LA me.

Ahhh, it is so nice to be tapping away here again! You’ve probably noticed that this blog has purely become a little hidey-hole of the internet that I only update when I know I will really enjoy scratching the itch and have a rare solo afternoon like today. Nick is wearily making his way back across the country from his stag do! And so, charged up on a millions cups (bowls) of tea and having completed all my wedmin / wedding crafty tasks I thought oh! Like a Skeleton Key! Let’s do this old friend. I stick mostly to posting about my travel adventures over on TwentySomething Burnouts and this really is a place for more intimate and ramshackle brain ramblings. However with the total-plot twist life change news that I am moving to LA (as in, this time next month I will be a fully fledged living-working resident of Los Angeles – woooah) I have a feeling that I will be recording my life a little more fully on the internet again. That said; I don’t know if it will be blogging. I LOVE it, don’t get me wrong, and having kept a diary since I learnt to write, and an online journal since I discovered Livejournal at the age of 17, I’ll always do this. That said, writing a blog entry takes quite a bit of brain power. Working in marketing I regularly write long form content (blogs, press releases, campaign round-ups, copy etc) all day long which means that in my downtime I am slightly more reluctant to sit at my laptop continuing to work. After quite a bit of thought I decided I’d like to document my move to LA a little more visually; so will be setting up some sort of home to post videos. I feel like since I’ll be on the other side of the world it might be an easier way to share my new life with friends and family than attempting to do it justice with fancy words. PLUS! I will find it much easier to sit and natter at a camera than typing away; although I have no editing skills so might need to sweet talk my husband (!!) for help there.

But that’s enough of that, back to life right now. Well having said goodbye to London before; you’d think I’d be doing a better job of it this time but it seems to be a similar gut wrench of excitement to leave the pesky bits (tube traumas, grumpy folk, crazy creeping rent costs) and sadness to face the fact that realistically this may be the last time I live in the big smoke. Those pangs hit me at the funniest of moments. Don’t get me wrong, I know I am ridiculously blessed to be moving to a place that sounds like a dream to live in… but London has been my home for a decade. So I’m totally allowed a long goodbye! I even found myself gazing adoringly at Piccadilly Circus the other day – having spent 10 years desperately trying to avoid that particular patch. I think it boils down to the fact that I know who I am in London. I know I like to treat myself to a mocha from The Fields Beneath if it’s a dreary day. I know I like to wow visitors by taking them to Kings Cross Dishoom & nattering over pink drinks. I know I can pull on some trainers and be at the top of Primrose Hill in 15 minutes looking out over the whole of a toy-town skyline in the distance. I know that the cat who lives next door is called Thomas and where he likes his belly ruffled. I know Craig and I can go dancing at Archer Street at any given moment and they’ll play Taylor Swift and everything will feel ok again. I know I’m only a 3 hour train journey from Yorkshire and the wilderness when I need a brain break. I don’t know how to live my life in LA. Where will I go to make sense of myself?

It’s ok though. Because I had all these feelings before I quit my life and backpacked around the place and they dissolved within about a day of me stepping foot off the plane. It’s hard to be all wistful and emo when a new culture and adventure is demanding every ounce of concentration! I’m also a bit over-whelmed and run-down from: a) leaving my job/downloading my work brain b) preparing for a new job c) planning a (very DIY) wedding and d) preparing to ship and move my life to another country. I’m sure all of these feature on a “most stressful life things” list somewhere and I’m a bit like a bingo card of THINGS TO THINK AND DO right now. I honestly don’t know how I would function without To Doist. Every second I spend my time right now feels like it’s been colour coded, tagged and categorised in that app right now (even writing this – cringe!) Luckily Nick has been on hand to save me from myself and make sure that I have downtime. This week he surprised me with tickets to see Empire Records at the Camden Market Backyard Cinema Film Festival! Let’s not talk about the fact that Empire Records is TWENTY years old this year (it’s ok though, Pretty Woman is 30 years old). Nick splurged on some sort of lux (so LA!) tickets that included a free whopping Honest Burger and a giant cider. We cosied up under blankets on deck chairs and not even a decent dose of British Summer rain could stop us bopping along to the soundtrack (which I used to have on tape cassette in my first car) and talking along with the unforgettable quotes that are taking up valuable GBs in my bee brain. Attention Rex Manning fans, to your left you will notice a shoplifter being chased by night manager, Lucas. This young man will be caught, deep fried in a vat of hot oil and served to our first hundred customers. Just another tasty treat from the gang at Empire Records! The festival is running for another couple of weeks, including the chance to see Amy in Camden which would be pretty fitting and a screening of Teen Wolf which sadly clashes with my work leaving shindig so please go and watch it on my behalf!

Something else that’s been making me happy is flowers! When Blossoming Gifts emailed me to ask if I’d like to sample their delivery flower service I obviously said yes please and then swooned over the fact they had a bouquet of Apricot Rose & Hydrangea. I am having hydrangeas for my bridal flowers so the thought of having some in the house whilst I did the final bits and bobs of wedding planning felt really special. And no I haven’t walked up and down the side of my bed holding the vase as if it was my bouquet and smiling sweetly at the walls pretending they were guests. Nope, no siree. I was super impressed with the delivery bouquet options; it felt like they had some really unusual colour and flower combinations and are clearly experts in what works well together. The flowers arrived in a very sturdy box and lasted a whole week without wilting, even in the tropical London smog we had lately. In fact the apricot dalidas are still going strong so I’ve transferred them into a little glass vase that Nick bought me which is actually a wine carafe that is given to Italian army officers as standard kit (snazzy!) which he picked up at the local Army Surplus Store.

Blossoming Gifts have kindly passed on a discount of 33% off if you’d like to treat yourself! I’d definitely rate them and the ease of being able to pick a bunch online and know they will be delivered safely and swiftly is so easy. No more scuttling around a service station hunting out a crummy old carnation creation when in need of thanking someone! You just need to enter the code BGIFTS33. You can check out their flowers by post here and their cheap flower selection (which don’t look cheap – score!) here. I’m already desperate to order myself the orangery selection – those giant daisies are cute as a button.

One thing that is also concerning me greatly about the upcoming move is WOE I will not be in the UK for the Great British Bake Off final. And apparently there isn’t a Great American Bake Off to fill the (cake) hole so I am going to need to work out how to use Tunnel Bear properly and work out the time zone different for watching it as soon as possible and hope it doesn’t involve being awake at 4am or something. Everybody without exception in my team at work is GBBO mad; so for the last couple of years I have helped to organise a team bake off where a different person bakes every Wednesday. Last year I burnt my arm so badly whilst making a Chocolate & Yorkshire Ale cake that I had to go to A&E when it made my veins turn red and angry! This year I managed to avoid any hospitalisation and also managed to make a random thought that had popped into my head a baked good reality. I had wondered if I could make a cake that looked like a watermelon using some kind of mystical food colouring / dark chocolate drop combo. And well… it kind of worked!

Before I sign off I just want to share a few final things that are currently floating my boat, since I have been absent for a while. Mainly – PODCASTS. Serial was my gateway drug, which led onto podcasts about that podcast (still totally hooked on Undisclosed, Serial Dynasty, Serially Obsessed and Crime Writers on Serial) and about the same time I discovered Welcome to Night Vale and This American Life which tend to also be the big gateway podcast pathways for the less crime oriented types. Oh and I loved listening to Grantland’s Watch the Thrones almost more than watching this season of Game of Thrones. Podcasts have completely revolutionised my life in terms of how much more fun any sort of travel or chores now are. Whereas previously I might have put a few tunes on to motivate myself to do the washing up or my commute; now I honestly track my walk to work against how many episodes of podcasts I have to get through and get extremely excited about that time alone in a totally immersive world of audio. I feel embarrassed, as an audio book lover, why it took me so long to figure out that podcasts were swiftly going to become my favourite form of entertainment.

Recently I have got deep in to three podcasts that I wanted to share; given that basically all my podcast discoveries have come via recommendations. They all have something in common and have unearthed a part of my tastes, likes and interests that had somehow become dampened as I have grown into an adult. That thing is… MYSTERY! As a child I was absolutely obsessive about mysteries. My sister and I would count down the excruciating seconds for Strange but True with Michael Aspel to come on each week. We had various books of unsolved mysteries including the classics like the Bermuda Triangle, Jack the Ripper and Mary Celeste and I would paw over them every night after lights out using the old torch-under-the-duvet trick. I can remember the giddy-terrified sensation of hearing about a new spooky story or unsolved mystery and laying awake for hours trying to unpick the details and try to solve it; not for the good of humanity but in order to not be totally freaked out and need to do the shameful climb into bed with my sister! As I’ve got older I have developed a more control-freak-ish personality and therefore all things mysterious have slightly gone out of the window. That said I have still always had a curiosity for true crime (mainly in the form of an addiction to Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City and always reading the headlines of Chat magazine when lurking at the supermarket checkout) and maintained a love for zombies and b-movies. All of these long lost loves have been re-ignited through my three top podcasts; hooray! Childhood me is so happy to feel that spooky goosebump skin once more!

Lore : Sometimes the truth is more frightening than fiction. This bi-weekly podcast explores topics such as real life zombies, folklore, mysterious beasts, asylums, cabins in the woods and haunted hotels. I almost squealed when I saw episode 9 pop-up in my feed as it covers the story of the Devil on the Roof; the story I remember terrifying me into a near catatonic state when I first read about it with sweaty palms at a stupidly young age (blame having elder siblings!) It’s hosted by Aaron Mahnke who has the worlds most soothing voice and is also a supernatural thriller author and resident of Boston (known for the Salem trials and being Lovecraft heartland; so a pretty good place to start) and I can’t recommend it enough. Just make sure you have an Ovaltine lined up for bedtime after listening.

Generation Why : Murders, myths, monsters and miscarriages of justice. I have come to this cult podcast at a shamefully late date considering how much it’s my cup of tea. That said; it now means I could binge on about 50 incredible episodes in the space of 3 weeks – covering everything from the disappearance of Madeline McCann, the case of D B Cooper, the Zodiac Killer and Robert Durst. Amongst these more contemporary cases though are sprinkled a ton of old classics from my reading-by-torchlight days which I have gleefully revisited with an adult brain – Loch Ness Monster, Bermuda Triangle, Big Foot and the Bermuda Triangle! The podcast is so well produced and presented by Aaron and Justin that you soon feel like you are sitting down with a couple of old chums for a natter about the weird and wonderful. I like the fact that the more grizzly / grim cases (multiple homicides or violence against kids/women) often focus far more on education around the legal implications or the culture surrounding the circumstances than just fear-mongering or focussing on the gory details. For example I listened to the podcast about Lucie Blackman; a story I felt really affected by at the time when it was all over the news, and was relieved that the podcast was super respectful and featured a real expert in Japanese culture and lifestyle to explain the context of the case.

The Mystery Show : A podcast where Starlee Kine solves mysteries. This podcast is a ridiculously simple concept – Starlee Kine investigates mysteries that cannot be solved by the power of Google. On the journey to solve the mysteries however; it’s the people and the places that Starlee is taken that create a rollercoaster of emotions, unexpected forks in the road and twists & turns that become so unexpected you almost forget what the original mystery way (for example the SPECTACULAR Phil Spector story that is revealed whilst looking for the source of Welcome Back, Kotter lunch pail artwork) it’s adorable, it’s engaging and it’s a must-listen.

I’m blogging! A miracle! And I have to start by sharing giddy joy for my favourite item of clothing ever. It’s the most perfect fitting blouse, and it’s covered in Mermaids. I obviously just want to wear it every day, all day, including in the bath; like a true mer-type.

My other news is that a friend of Phil aka Chime Hours has recently started her own company in the business of TEA. After mermaids, tea is my favourite thing and so as soon as Phil mentioned this my ears pricked up and my fingers were tapping away to the lovely Lucy Dolan to see if she would be so kind to send me a few samples. It was fascinating to learn from Lucy about the Dragons Den style USP of her tea offering, which is that she wanted to create modern infusions and flavours; but using ancient elements. This theme runs through the mouth watering flavours including Tropical Earl, Coco Chai and BounTea (“lashings of sweet, succulent coconut and bold, rich cocoa. Nice but not too naughty. Paradise in a cup“- Hello! Please get in MY cup this instant!) Lucy started out Zig Zag as a stall at Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane – but is now bringing her delightful concoctions to the wider world and selling online here. (Quick! Order, before I nab them all…)

It was so tricksy for my greedy tea-brain to select just a few flavours to try, but I opted for Caramel Rooibos, Cherry Marzipan and Salted Caramel. Firstly I was impressed with the snazzy vacuum packed space-age style in which the tea arrived! I loves the way that this olde worldy mythical goods could be packaged in such a futuristic way. Also; it’s just plain useful to have the zip-loc to keep the tea fresh.

I was also instantly enamoured with the fact that all the teas were… pretty?! I know that seems quite odd, but I do feel what tea offers in glorious heavenly flavour, it slightly loses out in terms of attractiveness. Why else would people insist on shoving it inside a paper bag to serve it? I’ve sampled a few different types of “posh leaf tea” but I’ve never seen any this good looking. For example in the Salted Caramel packet I could see the huge hunks of caramel, liquorice and cardamom. This just made the whole tea experience feel so much more like one for all the senses; rather than just my mouth.

I carried out the tea tasting on a day when I was working from home and had a total presentationzilla to pull together that felt like an impossible Everest task. So I loaded up my tea submarine and mana-tea with the various flavours and set to hard work slurping and scribbling. First up was the Cherry Marzipan which certainly did not disappoint in terms of packing a flavour punch. Lucy describes the tea as “A sophisticated blend of refreshing Ceylon black tea, combined with juicy, tart cherries and rich almond. Full of enticing marzipan aroma and flavour to satisfy a sweet tooth without the killer calories.” I would describe the tea as “OMG Liquid Bakewell Tart!!! What is this wizardry?” I think this tea would work with or without milk (maybe depending on if you would put cream on a Bakewell Tart of not..?) and it has fast become a firm favourite of mine. It’s also so sweet, that you don’t even need any biscuits to dunk in it. I KNOW.

My absolute favourite flavour however was the Caramel Rooibos. Rooibos is already my go-to drink, but I can find myself getting a little weary of the flavour. In Lucy’s words this version of the South African wonder-herb “combines smooth caramel and sweet caramel for the perfect guilt-free indulgence.” (Two types of caramel? Who even knew there were multiple types?) It’s just SO right. It tastes a bit like a Tunnocks caramel wafer and is definitely a step above an average brew. I already think I need to to order myself a giant barrel of the stuff as I am down to my last “pinch” of the tea and already feeling twitchy about what occasion will be special enough to have my last cup.

Thanks so much to Lucy for sending me out these special samples. What a shiny tea star you are!

I will be back soon with a more thorough life update. There are some murmurings and mutterings of some pretty big stuff on the horizons and I am so excited to finally be able to tap away here and share them. Not to mention, it’s only 100 days until I get MARRIED and I definitely want to write a good old ramble about how that experience has been. But first… I just have a few mountains to climb.

It’s been a while, huh? If you feel out of touch with my goings on, I have been wittering away about recent travels such as BERLIN over on Twentysomething Burnouts; so don’t forget to subscribe over there! Life is feeling pretty settled at the moment; which is a rarity for me and something that usually means I am going to do something crazy to unsettle things! But for now I am still here in my lovely treehouse flat in North London, which I’ve lived in for a year this month. I’m still working away at Penguin Random House and pinching myself that I get to read books for a living (although there is a little more to it than that) Oh and still wedding planning. The big day is 133 days away (I am obsessed with the Big Day app!) (and brackets it seems) and after finding wedding planning a little bit stressful initially, I have now hit my stride and am really enjoying the process. It helps that all of my friends are pitching in so much and letting me delegate, which is a skill that does NOT come easily for someone with Monica-from-Friends-control-freaking-syndrome. The most helpful of all has been my beloved Craig or should I say… my Creative Director! Who is helping on the decor front; from hunting out treasures on eBay to setting up on the day so I can concentrate on getting my hair done and drinking bubbles. What a wedding gift!

I don’t know how other people have approached wedding planning but Nick and I have a system that works pretty well. Firstly; broadly speaking I am organising the wedding, he is organising the honeymoon. This has kept things really clear and plays to both our strengths. I was worried that wedding planning was going to grow into a monster and take over my whole life; which isn’t really possible when I have a full-time job and busy year (2015 has already been an insane one for other weddings/anniversaries/30ths etc etc… in fact I have been away every weekend since the beginning of March! Phewf!) so my method has just been to IGNORE wedding planning on a day to day basis; and then set aside one Sunday every month to get up early and spend the whole day planning, booking, paying bills, filling out forms and all of that stuff. It’s so productive and I have a list up until September of what I need to tick off each month; so I always know what’s coming and what to power through. Then I have a week off in June where I can sit around in my PJs listening to Taylor Swift and doing all the crafting and little details for the tables and guests. This has kept the whole thing feeling incredibly manageable and dare I say… fun!

One thing I’ve had to do is get a little bit fit this year. I didn’t want to do the predictable bridezilla dieting and being miserable for the year leading up to the wedding (I love cheese way too much for that) so instead I have just carried on eating what I want, but focussed on exercising. I pay for an expensive London gym membership but in November and December I only used it twice – once to use the free Wifi and the other time to use the VENDING MACHINE (!) so honestly it was time for a change. That and the fact that when January rolled round, I had a wedding dress fitting and couldn’t fit in the dress I had altered the previous October. From that point I made a vow to do some form of exercise 5 out of 7 days. My problem is I get quite grumpy and bored at fitness of most kinds and am basically huffing, puffing and pouting before I have even laced up my trainers or stepped into the pool. By switching up what I do, I have managed to trick my brain into not hating it because there isn’t a predictable routine. Some days I just walk into work (just over 5k/3miles) and then it’s done for the day before I’ve even really woken up. Other days I swim, spin, pilates or if I’m feeling really brave, I go to step aerobics set to 90s music. I’m also doing one run a week. I have had such a love/hate relationship with running but after reading Running Like A Girl by Alexandra Heminsley it really re-ignited all my warm fuzzy feelings. I can’t run very easily in winter because cold air is my main asthma trigger, so now the warmer days are here I am actually enjoying the chance to race about a bit. I am SO spoilt to have Primrose Hill, Hampstead Heath and Regents Park all on my doorstep, so it’s nice to be making the most of that.

Even though it’s May, and I have shed the excess Christmas pounds and am feeling fitter than ever, I have found it hard to accept that this is a “permanent” shift. I’ve been stubbornly wearing the same crummy old band tees and old running leggings that I’ve had for six years and are peppered with moth munches because I’m still in the mindset that this is just a phase. Finally last month Nick talked some sense into me and I invested in some running tights, proper fitting/quick-dry tops and basically things that don’t fall down/off when I do any sort of movement. It’s amazing how this has revolutionised my running particularly; how feeling good about myself carries me through on days where I feel less like getting out there. Primark has actually been my best source of nice-looking but nicely-priced sports kit; so it’s worth going there for a dig around if your gym kit needs an overhaul.

As well as feeling chipper on my wedding day, I wanted to put this new found energy and zing to good use. A month ago an email came round at my work, and before I had chance to convince myself of all the reasons I COULDN’T do it, I signed up… to climb the Three Peaks in 24 Hours! This is happening in just over a months time, so I’m stepping up the training with a few 20 mile walks planned in May. Oh and climbing the stairs at work every day, as I am on the 7th floor and it’s two-flights per floor. I mean that is totes the same thing as Snowden… right?! I am obviously quite intimidated by the challenge that lays ahead of me, but as it’s with a bunch of colleagues so I feel like it will be an incredible bonding experience and I just know I’ll feel so proud every time we reach one of the summits (even if I only learnt for the first this week that err, Ben Nevis has SNOW on it, that’s how high it is) I need to wake up to the fact I’ll need to invest in a bit of kit, our list includes things such as 2L hydration system… and I am not naive in how gruelling this will be as not only is it lots of steep walking and scrabbling, but it’s also 24 hours with no sleep (the second peak is done in the night, with only a head torch to guide us… so hopefully that one will kind of be like sleepwalking?) but I just plan to stock up on jelly babies, flapjack and a few audio books to tune into if I need distracting. Wish me luck and if you could be ever so kind; donate a few pennies? I’m raising money for Mind; a charity incredibly close to my heart who always need more funding to do their amazing work. I’m only at the half-way mark of my compulsory £550 sponsorship target so even if you only donate the cost of a pint that would still be hugely appreciated! Sponsor me and my legs HERE. If you do, I will be THIS happy and you can see how happy that is!

All of this gadding about the place in trainers has got me a little sore; so when a different kind of email came round work offering reduced price sports massages; I booked myself in. Imagine my horror when I turned up to my session and the masseuse is a 20 stone body builder, with a body fat ratio of 5%?! He even enters in professional body building competitions and eats 40 eggs a day. it made my jaunts around the park look small fry. It certainly was not what I expected and I was scared he might permanently break me, considering he resembled the incredible hulk. Obviously he didn’t, because he is a professional masseuse, but I sure could feel the work he did for days afterwards!

Well that’s probably most of the new news for now! I turn 31 on Monday and am quite excited to inch further away from my twenties and into a decade that feels like it’s fitting pretty well. I told someone yesterday that it’s my birthday soon and their response was “well you don’t know how many you have left to celebrate; so enjoy it!” which at the time totally destroyed my feel good celebratory vibes and put me into a bit of a downward mortality-questioning spiral. However, she was right in a way. We are so lucky to have every day, birthday or not, so it’s nice to feel like I’m trying to squeeze the most out of them right now.

Why is 2015 in such a hurry ey? Maybe it’s because I am planning a wedding and so hyper-aware of the days left to get my bum in gear and organise things are speeding past in a blur of well… doing everything but organising things. I just can’t believe that it’s mid February, that the days are getting long and that things in April (like my next dress fitting) suddenly seem uncomfortably close rather than dark distant days!

I feel like this gorgeous Hello Dodo tee-shirt sums up my general life-vibe lately. Bear with me; I’m trying my best to be good and enthused about all the things but occasionally I just have to take a day like today where I sack every thing and everyone off and am still in my PJs at 4pm, intending to make the most active thing I do changing into a fresh pair when bedtime rolls around. Anyway! I am really keen to share with you a really neat thing I did in London lately. My friend Ianthe writes for the BA High Life in-flight magazine and got in touch a few weekends ago to see if Nick & I wanted to accompany her, along with some of Nick’s other uni buddies, to a “locked room mystery”. A few Googles later and I realised that there a craze sweeping well… the world, which London is actually a little late to the scene on. The craze actually started in 2007, when in Japan there was a sweep of turning simple point and click computer games into a physical challenge, that took place in a locked room. The participant would only be able to leave the room once the challenge had been successfully completed. This soon became so popular that the trend was picked up and soon “escape the room” adventures were popping up across Asia, Australia and Europe.

So, this led to me finishing an uneventful work Monday in January and making my way to an anonymous looking door in the city, near Bank station. The first challenge was to locate the entrance to Escape Hunt; the only signage being a small logo next to the doorbell. After plummeting 3 flights of stairs into the bowels of London, we were met by an enthusiastic lady dressed as a sort of sexy Sherlock Holmes (!) who introduced herself to us as our Games Master. We were pretty swiftly taken to a door and the process of what lay ahead of us was explained. The building contained various themed mysteries; our mystery to crack that night was the called “The Artists Bedroom”. In the bedroom we would fine an artist had been brutally murdered; and we would have exactly one hour from the second we entered the room to work through various codes, clues and puzzles in order to solve the crime. For the duration of the hour, our Games Master would be watching us on CCTV. If at any point we got stuck; we could phone her for a clue. However! This was discouraged because every time we phoned for help; we would lose a minute from the countdown clock. If at any point she felt like we were taking too long, she could phone us with a hint to keep us on track. We deposited all of our worldly belongings in a locker outside and were quickly hustled into a small infra-red lit room and the door slammed with an electronic click. We were totally locked in and we needed to get a wriggle on to escape…

In case you are planning to take part in Escape Hunt I won’t give too many spoilers about the mystery itself, because that’s obviously the best bit. Once in the room, there were various different types of tasks; from reading music, to maths, to word games to picking up on subtle clues within the room. We also had to basically turn everything within the four walls upside down in order to find keys, padlocks, hidden laminated hints and NOTHING was what it seemed (for example an innocuous looking wardrobe ended up being a door into an Alice in Wonderland style set of smaller and smaller rooms beyond it). The main theme, cheesy as it is, was team work. We quickly figured out that unless we organised who was focussing on what and where, we didn’t have a hope of getting past the first hurdle. It’s also unbelievable how quickly an hour can flit past once you are racing against the clock. In the end, we had to phone ole sexy Sherlock three times for a helping hand, and she phoned us once… and we cracked the crime with 7 minutes to spare! Afterwards we got to celebrate by a) being freed from our locked room prison and b) dressing up in tweed and posing at a photo-booth with various Baker Street appropriate props.

I cannot recommend Escape Hunt enough. It brings every childhood Crystal Maze fantasy to life! (Except not getting to go in the glass box and grab gold and silver tokens, wah) It was SO much fun! There seem to be endless iterations of escape adventures popping up across the capital at the moment, with Hint Hunt and Clue Quest amongst them. I’ve chatted to colleagues who have been to other versions and I feel like perhaps the other companies might be a little slicker; with more maths/code based tech-y type challenges. I’m not going to lie; ours was pretty hammy! And the theme was definitely steeped in detective stories, clues and observation skills; which I’d definitely prefer over anything too tech based. The Sherlock stuff and the very low budget props in the room definitely made it clear that the money had gone into the CCTV set up, central location and working out the room riddles themselves. I guess it’s down to preference; so do a bit of research of what’s available where before you buy your tickets. That said, we found the slightly low-budget-ness really charming and a good ice breaker once locked into a teeny tiny room as a group of five. There really wasn’t much I would have changed about the experience; and we were all completely high on it afterwards! It was so rare to be that focussed on something for an entire hour; with the worries of work, life and London completely vanished. In such an intense environment, with a team relying on you, it was impossible to let your mind wonder. I’m already obsessed with taking as many different groups of friends as possible; as it’s such a good alternative to a night down the pub or an expensive dinner somewhere. I also feel competitive with my former self already, and desperate to get back in a locked room in an attempt to get out of it in a quicker time. One final thing to note is that ironically, I am quite claustrophobic (can’t go in lifts, but totally fine in tubes – to give you an idea of the size of my triggers) therefore the concept of being locked in a tiny room had my heart pit-pattering. That said, as I mentioned in my 2015 resolutions, I am trying to keep my anxiety in check and was determined not to let it stop me taking part in something that sounded so fun. As it turned out, the Games Master was SO understanding and gave me a couple of reassurances such as the fact she was watching the whole time and I could just wave to the camera to be let out. So if small spaces give you the fear, don’t let it put you off this amazing experience!

What else has been occurring? Last weekend I zoomed up north to catch up with my friends and family, and take a bit of a London brain-break. I spent the Saturday in Leeds with my mum. I lived in Leeds for 5 years, so was amazed that she could show me something that had remained a completely hidden treasure the whole time I was resident there; luckily after a bit of research I realised it had only opened once I had left the city, so feel a bit less sad about the missed opportunities to while away some hours there. This most marvellous marvel is the Leeds Art Gallery Cafe and it’s certainly one of the most beautiful spaces I have ever seen, including every where I have visited on my world travel tour. It was originally a Victorian reading room for Leeds library, but fell into disrepair. In 2007 a huge project saw the hideous 60s shelving torn down and the tiled room restored to its former glory. There are wall to wall green decorative tiles, huge marble arches, gold globed roof detailing and floor to ceiling windows letting in beautiful light shafts. It’s honestly breath taking when you step foot inside, and worth going just to see in person. That said, the tea and cakes (and the company) were pretty great too.

I slept at Becca’s house on the Saturday night. Myself and her other two bridesmaids drank pink wine and ate noodles and nattered away until we realised it had gone 2am. The next day I had a slightly hazy cross-Yorkshire mission to get to visit another friend, Annette, so Becca drew me a handy map to get me on my way. Please note her use of the word snicket which is such a Bradfordism that I am proud to say I haven’t let London knock out of me.

This weekend was Valentines Day and although we hadn’t planned to do anything ~special~; actually one of the most romantic things we could do happened. We went to the town hall and gave our official Notice of Marriage. Nick had been saying all week that he thought we’d be separated and interrogated and asked hard Mr & Mrs style questions about each other. I was shaking my head and saying that sounded like something he’d seen in a movie and would definitely not happened. But sure enough, we made our way to the registrars room and within a couple of minutes had sent me packing to a chair outside whilst Nick had to give my occupation, full name and date of birth. Phewf! We had to switch up and then I did the same. Even though I knew all the answers, I found myself stuttering and stumbling because it felt like an oral GCSE exam or something pesky like that. Luckily we passed with flying colours (actual quote!) and we are now legally set to become an actual real life grown up married couple. Wow! This got us into the Valentines spirit so we decided to celebrate “Kanken-tines Day” instead (previous love letter to Kankens HERE) and head to one of our favourite little nooks of East London – The Brokedown Palace where we picked up some new Fjall Raven Joy. I also got myself the most amazing pair of socks that I have refused to remove since. After years of Primarks finest, I never new socks could feel this way! Toasty, cosy and the perfect temperature, I feel like I might have spoilt me feet for ever and might need to throw away every other pair I own.

My name’s Bee and I’m a dress-aholic. Don’t get me wrong; I am not stating this to claim any sort of fashionista status, but more to confess that I actually find dressing up easier than dressing down. When faced with the bleary eyed pre-7am task of rooting through my wardobe, I inevitably sway towards my rack of dresses. Come summer or winter, it is just so much easier to pull on a single item and be instantly fixed up! I can then use any remaining early morning smarts to match it with one of my rainbow of cardigans or chuck on a couple of accessories. Whilst this sounds lazy; it usually ends up looking smarter than if I spend ages battling a jeans, shirt, jumper, trainer marathon outfit ensemble.

Prior to this year, I had never really thought of shopping in George at ASDA for dresses. The main barrier was that I don’t have an ASDA near me (Mozzas4lyfe) and despite being an online shopping fan, hadn’t ever thought of checking out their fashion offering. However as I write this blog I remembered that when I was 15 I had a school Christmas disco to attend and my mum took me to ASDA to buy my dress and even thinking about it now gives me tingles. It was a red tunic style dress (boy was I bolshy and brave, I wouldn’t opt for red these days) with lacey material over the top. I loved it so much that I styled it up after the disco by wearing it over a long sleeved black tee-shirt and flared jeans on a near-daily basis for about an ACTUAL year afterwards. So, it’s kind of nice that after living the same amount of years as my first George at ASDA dress (!) I am rediscovering them.

So, this year my oldest school friend Becca is getting married and I am super honoured to be a bridesmaid. Luckily enough I get to return the favour a mere few months after her big day. I love thinking how if you’d told us when we were swapping notes in class and whispering in the playground at the age of 10 that we’d be getting married in the same year, and that year would be 2015, our kiddie minds would have been actually blown. Anyway, I digress, and the point is that Becca’s bridesmaid dresses are from…. George at ASDA. And they are GORGEOUS. I won’t spoiler too much here, but they are Audrey Hepburn cute little 50s frocks with pockets and perfectly flicky skirts. That said, I haven’t yet tried mine on, because the snow up north over Christmas quashed my plans of popping to Beccas for a dress up session (which I am slightly relieved about considering just how many Guylian sea shells I managed to consume over the festive period) I know this is a rambly explanation but bear with me! The bridesmaid dresses had sold out, so Becca wanted me to order another dress of a similar style from George to check it fitted ok. I logged on, thinking (terrible… forgive me ASDA!) that I would order any old thing, try it on, and send it back. Instead I found it super hard to even choose from the selection of lovely dresses and then ordered this floral beaut that will do perfectly for a snazzy work gala dinner I’m attending later this year. Sorted!

In that weird way the world works, just a day later the lovely Lucy at George contacted me to say they wanted to gift me a dress and bag to share on the blog and wax lyrical about how dressing up is not just for the festive season. (It’s not!) What a twist of fate! Being extremely familiar with the dress selection I opted for this gorgeous brush-stroke effect dress. The pattern reminds me of abstract palm trees, and I desperately need an injection of summer in my life, and I am also really into the midi length at the moment. Too many of my dresses have gone down the route of being washed too many times and turning into X-rated bum skimmers. With a nice midi option, there is no risk of accidentally sharing my ass cheeks with the office, a fact which everyone will surely be grateful.

(Can we take a moment to discuss my chubby elbows?! I guess you never really look at your own elbows, as that’s physically impossible, but wow. I didn’t realise they were actually dimpled like little smiley faces!)

The dress feels really versatile, whilst I love it with tights and boots and a blazer for a smarter office wear look; I think it’ll be great with sandals for some smart summer roaming too.

I selected a beautiful croc textured & pink satchel big enough to fit all the bits and bobs I need for work in; which is pretty hefty. I then realised that I have basically committed a lifestyle blogger CRIME, in that I have never, not ever, done a “What’s In My Bag” post, despite the fact I devour them whole when posted by anyone else. So, for your noseying pleasure, let’s have a look at what’s lurking in my shiny new satchel:

1. Wallet: I take after my mum in needing the worlds largest purse to store the important stuff like bank card and driving license; but also my 1000 loyalty cards for everywhere I have ever eaten or drunk ever. There is also some random bits like my oyster card (aka all-my-money-sucker) a swatch of the fabric for my bridesmaid dresses (ee!) and some lovely photobooth photos from my two times in Vegas.

2. Kindle & Book: Working in publishing I now have a reading list as long as my arm. This means that I constantly carry three forms of books; kindle (where I can save manuscript PDFs), a physical book and audio, as I subscribe to Audible on my phone. During the day I usually switch between all three at some point. At the moment I am listening to “The Woman Who Stole My Life” by Marian Keyes, which is my first Marian Keyes novel and I’m excited to see what all the fuss is about having really enjoyed all the interviews and blogs I’ve read of hers. I’m trying to broaden what I read (/hear?) this year, as it’s important, now more than ever, that I am familiar with a real range of authors, titles and genres. I am reading “What She Left” by T. R. Richmond; which is an exciting proof copy as the book isn’t released until April (I still get geekily giddy about these!) and is told through a really unusual approach to fiction in that it is all written via compiled diary entries, social media posts and letters. There is no straight narrative prose. Finally, on my kindle I am reading The Amber Fury by Natalie Haynes and All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven. I’m a quarter through each and should probably stick to one and finish it… but I feel like they both require me to be in a certain brain space to tackle the tricky topics in each. My kindle case was a Christmas present to myself from Klevercase as Great Gatsby is my favourite book. Considering my kindle is 2 years old and has travelled around the world and back; getting covered in sand, sweat and sea… I’m so impressed that it’s still battling on and am currently awaiting the liney screen of doom any day!

3. Mustard Moleskin: I keep notes in lots of places; in Evernote, To Doist and my actual notebook. I find having numerous places to tick tasks off makes it more likely I’ll do at least a few…

4. Vaseline: For a short, sweet period of time vaseline did an amazing “Queen Bee” honey branded tin. I should have loaded up because I instantly lost mine. The old fashioned label cocoa butter one is a runner up favourite though.

5. Pad lock & Underwater Headphones: I always have these odd objects on my person because I go swimming twice a week. The padlock is for my gym locker, and the underwater headphones have revolutionised my laps because now I can do it whilst listening to The National and Taylor Swift, and therefore never getting bored!

6. Washi tape: Because you NEVER know when youre going to need to get crafty!

Okay so nothing earth shatteringly secret lurking in there, but even if there was you wouldn’t be able to find it beneath the 1,0000 kirby grips.

In the last week London has turned Arctic; and I’ve been frantically unearthing all my thermals (last worn in the ANDES!) and every piece of faux fur I own. Because I haven’t had a proper UK winter in 2 years, I am still enjoying the novelty of proper British weather; that sleety frozen rain that fills every crevice with cold and soggyness, or the air so frosty that on my walk into work – the section of scarf I have nearest my mouth has actual ice crystals on it by the time I take it off. I’ve mainly been using the cold front as an opportunity to wear my ridiculous jumper collection, and tuck up under the duvet reading about mountain disasters… because no matter how chilly it is here, I know I’m never going to be as cold as alpine mountaineers stuck up Everest at -27 degrees getting frost bitten faces.

Last weekend we had my future in-laws staying for the weekend; so rather than wallowing about reading, I was forced out of my duvet cocoon and into full on hostess mode. Luckily Sue and Nigel are the easiest, cheeriest guests around and they had a very clear itinerary of what they would like to see in London. I do love having guests to London, because otherwise I stick to the same local treasures and favourite well-worn spots. I rarely make the most of the galleries, exhibitions and museums right on the door step. Our first stop on the tour was the Imperial War Museum. Nick & I visited the museum in Manchester last year and it was an incredible experience; so we had high hopes for the London version which had recently re-opened with a whole WW1 gallery. I suppose when deciding what museum in London to potter around for a few hours, the topic of war might not be high on everyones list and places such as the Natural History or Science museum might feel more tempting. To be honest, had I been left to my own devices, I might have been lured towards a nicer offering; so I’m really grateful that the Horton’s infectious enthusiasm rubbed off on me, as it is by far the best museum exhibit I have ever been to.

Just one tip about the Imperial War Museum; you will never get through it all in one day! We took nearly three hours just to see the first floor. Part of this was because we went on the busiest day of the week, but part of it was the density and detail that there is to immerse yourself in. I did learn about the Great War at school, but in terms of my knowledge of world history, my brain is far more filled with facts about WW2 and the Nazis (talking of which… if you didn’t see The Eichmann Show on the BBC this week you absolutely MUST catch it on iPlayer. It is one of the most moving pieces of television I have ever seen; ever.) The Great War is also the entirely new gallery, so that was where we decided to spend our afternoon. I don’t exactly know what I expected, but the gallery was curated to perfection. There is a total mix of visuals, design, haunting quotes, video, audio and artefacts. The gallery takes you from pre-war and the tension build up, right through the war, and onto the build up on WW2. The refreshing element to the experience is that it isn’t just focussed on soldiers or the British. The gallery really brings to life how war affected everyone from children, to women, to men (both in and out of the army) and to people in pretty much every corner of the world.

Unbelievably, given the subject matter, there are some real moments of light relief or curious ingenuity – such as a video depicting how the soldiers in the Somme came up with the idea to build fake “bombed out” trees that they turned into look out points. Despite being entirely man made, to a German soldier looking over the battlefield, they never once realised they were in fact being spied on by the enemy from this innocuous part of the “natural” landscape. Another aspect that tickled me, was how very British the approach to war was; in that when soldiers were battling for their lives in the trenches – a priority was still to keep hold of their special army edition shaving kit and ensure that they were clean shaven and immaculately turned out where possible.

Obviously, an awful lot of the gallery is devastating to take in. We all agreed afterwards, as silly as it sounds, that we felt like we had just lived through the war ourselves. The optimism and patriotism when war broke out is palpable; with men desperate to go to fight and represent their country. As the war goes on, and on, and on… the loss of lives reaches epic proportions and modern warfare catches everyone off guard with the introduction of gas, tanks and modern weaponry. The gallery was peppered with quotes from senior army officials at how “barbaric” the fighting was and how “un-gentlemanly and un-chivalrous” the war was turning out to be. It was quite a surreal experience to spend hours learning about every detail of the war, and dealing with all the harrowing emotions that came from being placed right in the centre of it… all whilst still being surrounded by hundreds of people taking the same journey. It’s such an important journey to take though, so I thoroughly recommend it to anyone in or visiting London.

& Now for something completely different! An event that really cheered up the gloomy grey days this week was a very generous delivery from Apple Yard Flowers. One of my new years resolutions, that I didn’t list in my epic round up here , is to take more care of my little flat. The flat is pretty dinky, so never really gets messy as we wouldn’t physically be able to move, but I have got a little lazy at putting up art on the walls and generally making it feel as us and sanctuary-like as possible. Part of my resolution was to invest in decent fresh flowers for the flat every couple of weeks; as they make such a difference to our front room AND my mood! So my discovery of Apple Yard couldn’t have come at a better time. Full disclosure >> they invited me to select a bouquet from their Valentines Flowers range to receive for free (yipee) in exchange for an honest review of their flower delivery service.

It was tough to choose from the Valentines selection, but in the end it was the Mimi Eden Roses that stole my heart. On delivery day, I was really impressed that the flowers arrived in a huge box (about half the size of me!) where the blooms were well wrapped up between giant bubble wrap and with the base in a special portable tub of water to keep them fresh. It reassured me of something that has previously made me apprehensive of delivery flowers; that the would just be heaped in a pile in the back of a van getting all wilted and bashed about! The bouquet itself was a generous bunch of at least 25 pink & white rose buds, in various states of unfurling. These were propped up in a bed of Buplerum and Hard Ruscus, creating a really stunning look. It’s amazing how many skills you accidentally learn when entering the wild world of wedding planning and suddenly finding yourself creating bouquet “looks” on pinterest. I know loads about foliage and green and what goes with what these days! Prior to this, I think I honestly would have thought buplerum was some sort of cocktail.

I really can’t fault the flowers or the service. They arrived in beautiful condition and bought a real twinkle to my front room for over a week. I can’t tell you how much my mood lifted every time my eyes tracked from the drizzly dull view back to my beautiful bright flowers. It’s definitely reinforced in my head that it’s worth spending a little more on flowers that last, rather than shove a bunch in my trolley on a Morrisons dash and then be surprised when they are manky and mouldy after a few days! My only baby bug bear was that I should have picked something that didn’t need quite such love and care as roses. With roses you really need to chop a decent wedge off the stems and remove the lower leaves when they arrive (which I did… prickly business) but they then really do need the process repeating a few days in. Unfortunately work and winter whisked in and I never did get time, which meant the roses started to brown and fade at the edges. I think they could have lasted a little longer if I had paid them a little more Valentines care and attention, so if you are after something a little lower maintenance then I’d opt for a different bouquet.

Apple Yard have very kindly offered me a discount code to share with you all; which entitles you to 40% off all of their beautiful bouquets. The discount code is BLOG40, so please do treat yourself (you totally deserve it) or someone who deserves a special delivery. I am absolutely in LOVE with this “Nutmeg” bouquet (how sweet are the little daisies?!) so perhaps I need to drop some poorly disguised hints for Nick to use my blog discount code for a surprise Valentines present… Ha! Can you see this being the start of an addiction? I’m officially a flowerzilla.

I’ve already done a bit of a look back at 2014 aka the biggest year of my life but every year (2013 here, 2014 here) I write some resolutions which I inevitably don’t stick to but really help me look back over my year and structure a bit of a misty mulled brain review of what I’ve been up to. This time last year I hadn’t updated this blog since September as I had been busily seeing the world and tapping away on Twentysomething Burnouts but as we holed up in a hotel in Panama City and recovered from our most traumatic travel moment I snuck down to the “business office” and did a sole post from Latin America. I’m in a different (way comfier) place this year as I sit writing this in my PJs, with a giant mug of tea, a fiance curled up next to me and in my own little treehouse flat; full and content from a week of port, fondue, friends, family and wintry walks.

2014 Resolution Recap

01.Read 52 books I think a hefty combination of events has conspired to make this the year that I will read the most books in my ENTIRE life! This year I didn’t just read a book a week as I aimed, I read 74 books in total! Crikey. You can see the full list here – thanks GoodReads for the lovely layout! Travelling for the first 3 months of the year spiked the number I could rattle through, with long journeys and endless need for distraction whilst waiting around sketchy bus stations and without pesky things like full-time work getting in the way. Then when pesky full-time work did come along… It was in publishing! Which means that not only do I now read for fun, but I read for work, and luckily most of the time I enjoy both kinds. There have been some incredible releases this year, plus I have discovered new authors and books that have been floating around for years but only surfaced into my brain this year and this led to some classic Bee-book behaviour where I then buy or download every single thing by that person and devour it as if they might vanish from my life again. Here are some of my 5*/top reads.

Dublin Murder Squad Series – Tana FrenchSomehow Tana French had passed me by; despite the fact that the first book in this Dublin Murder Squad series (Into The Woods) came out embarrassingly in 2007. Since then, there have been five books in the series and each one is told from the perspective of a different detective from within the Murder Squad, working on a different case. After reading Into The Woods at the start of November and really enjoying it, within moments of finishing the last paragraph I downloaded the rest to my kindle and Tana French was basically the ONLY thing I read in November! I am actually so happy that I read the books in this binging-fashion however because the same characters crop up and there are lots of bold, then more subtle, links between each novel and knowing my inability to retain tiny details; these would have been absolutely lost on me if I’d read the books as and when they were released.

It’s hard to choose, but I think I most enjoyed The Likeness where Detective Cassie Maddox is contacted after the body of a woman is found murdered and whose identity is none other than… Lexie Madison, a former alias that Cassie herself created when she was working as an undercover agent. In a slightly paranormal twist; the body also looks identical to Cassie. Attempting to discover more about this mystery unknown and now dead twin; Cassie goes undercover again and lives with Lexie’s university housemates to try to discover what on earth happened and who killed her (but not her). There was just a hint of Secret History about the dynamic between the students and their outsider cliquey life. All the other books are told via male narrators, and despite the characters all being layered and different, they can slide into slightly blokey territory. With The Likeness I enjoyed the female slant and perspective; Cassie’s behaviour and responses felt the most authentic to me of all the Detectives. That said, I really warmed to Detective Frank Mackey in Faithful Place, and my favourite storyline by far was Broken Harbour.

How To Be Both – Ali Smith
I strongly believe that the less you know about this book in advance, the better, so no spoilers here… or much information at all. I’ve been a lifelong Ali Smith fan and feel that her writing has grown up with me, and been such a comfort at various points in my life. With that in mind I was frothing at the mouth with excitement at a new release, and wasn’t at all disappointed. The book is printed in two entirely different ways; so that the reader will be met with the story Eyes first, followed by Camera OR Camera followed by Eyes. One story is slightly harder to get into but more rewarding. One is contemporary, one set in the past. That said, there are so many themes that thread between them, that at no point does it feel like two individual books. There are really only two things to say -1. Read it! and 2. No one describes falling in love better than Ali. “Cause all I could think of all that week was flowers for breath and flowers for eyes and mouths full of flowers, armpits of them, the back of knees, laps, groins overflowing with flowers and all I could draw was leaves and flowers, the whorls of roses, the foliage dark.”

The Lazarus Prophecy – F G CottamF G Cottam features in every reading round-up I’ve ever done. He’s one of my must-read authors. Previously I would have said must-read “horror/spooky” authors but with his latest release (and recent branching out into Young Adult/Super-Natural) I think it’s clear he is so much more than that. The Lazarus Prophecy is an ambitious new take on the Jack The Ripper mystery; set between a Victorian and contemporary London. The book opens with London left in the wake of a string of murders of women in the space of a few weeks. The killer seems to be targeting high profile victims who exist in the public eye and leaving behind clues in long dead languages. DCI Jane Sullivan leads the investigation supported by an ensemble cast of experts spanning religion, history and crime… but it quickly becomes unclear who can she really trust as she faces a race against time to avoid becoming a victim herself. This is by far my favourite Cottam novel and so ambitious, yet executed with precision and intricacies that make re-reading (and re-reading again) as enjoyable as the first time. I sound like a broken record (see Tana French above) but it was so refreshing to read a strong female lead; especially as the story revolves around horrific violence and violation of women. The strength and intelligence of the majority of women featured really offset that becoming an uncomfortable read; which I feel it might have if the protagonist was male. Cottam really captures the enchantment of old and new London and how they sit side by side; something that as a London dweller I am in awe of on a daily basis. I learnt some really fascinating London facts about places like Bedlam as an aside to it being a great read! I say this was an ambitious project because not only is a thrilling page-turner, it touches on some very relevant current issues such as religion, race, the vulnerability of the UK and the state of confusion around politics and beliefs. I am now extra keen to ensure that this year I take a trip to the Royal London Hospital Museum to see the famous “From Hell” letter in person.

I also really enjoyed Hawthorn & Child, The Rental Heart and The Broken (reviews here) and The Goldfinch, Hangover Square, The Shock of The Fall, Burial Rights, The Gospel of Loki, Disgrace and Apple Tree Yard.

My biggest WTF was We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. Clearly I am the only person in the world to feel this way, given its rave reviews, but I just couldn’t abide it. I actually resented the time of my life spent reading it, and wish I could claim it back!

Finally, and I know it’s not a book, but like 99% of the world this year I got massively into SERIAL. I can’t remember the last time I felt the infectious addiction around the next instalment for anything; not TV, film or books. I love This American Life, but Serial really tapped into that event feeling of a shared experience and I found myself seeking out fellow listeners wherever I could (including once on the tube!) and picking over the facts and story over and over and never getting bored. It really served as a gateway into re-kindling my love for audio and listening; that seems to have been buried for a few years. I REALLY should have re-kindled the audiobook love before I did a ton of 20/30 hour coach journeys, rather than after, hey? Now I am armed with an Audible subscription and the Librivox app; ready to keep me company on my long walks to work.

02. Re-learn to drive. FAIL! To re-cap on this,I passed my test first time when I was 17, then enjoyed a few years of driving around Yorkshire like a maniac, often dinking the car then attempting to blame my dad (sorry dad). I adored driving but then I moved to London and now I have been here nearly 9 years and not driven once. I had grand plans that 2014 would be my year to re-learn but then Nick went and popped the question, and money that might have been spent on something boring like a car is now being squirrelled away for way more fun things like Wedding! Party! Honeymoon! I think this is more likely to be a 2016 resolution, when I actually live somewhere that doesn’t have an amazing public transport system (and doesn’t have eye watering parking space costs)

03. Stay in touch with travel buddies: Could do better.We met some amazing friends from all over the world during our trip to Latin America, and due to the intensity and other-worldyness of the experiences you go through together; the bonds you make feel unlike anything else. When I was travelling, I felt like my barriers and boundaries were at an all-time low. There is no small talk because everyone you meet is already a kindred spirit in the fact that they happen to be in say… Ecuador at the exact same moment as you. Rather than than talking about careers or small talk, it felt like conversations with travel pals were always much deeper and honest because a) they have no preconceptions of “old me” from my “old life” and b) there was that sense that you may never see the person again so could risk a lot more soul searching. As with so many big thoughts and plots and plans I had whilst travelling; they had to be modified once I was back in the daily grind and day to day living that didn’t just involve hammocks and bug-spotting. Whilst we have stayed closely in touch with the people we made the deepest connections with such as Jordan and Skyler in Galapagos, Beau in Bolivia and Ike in Big Corn – it will be a special year when we see any of these people again face to face to reminisce about the days on the road! We did have one great twist of fate though; Tom the micro brewer from Minnesota that we met in Guatemala popped up over Christmas. My eldest sibling Meg went to Minnesota to visit friends this year so I encouraged them to pop into Tom’s brewery bar and say hey. Unfortunately he was off travelling again (jealous) but Meg did pick me up an amazing Indeed Brewery tee that was presented to me on Christmas Day.

04. Move to Brighton: Obviously this didn’t happen, and I think I am on a much better path because of it. Although now “live by the seaside” remains on my bucket list for the foreseeable future.

05. Eat more veggies: Yes and yes; and the purchase of a spirazlier and the discovery of courgetti has meant that I am no longer permanently on the brink of scurvy.

07. Start a project with Meg: This didn’t happen, but there are plans afoot…

08. See more of my friends and family: Yeah! It has helped being back in the same country as them and not just relying on pixelated Skype calls. The Christmas period was special for catching up with heaps of family, then New Years Eve I hosted a party with some of my absolute dearest friends for whom the stars had aligned to make them all be in London on this one night. We drank prosecco and danced to 90s music, and it was the best start to a year I have ever had.

09. Get Outdoorsy: Off to a good start with trips to Exmoor and Sweden hiking about the place; we are currently trying to pick somewhere to sneak off to in February for more outdoorsing as we both got new adventure gear over Christmas that we want to put to the test.

09. Apply all the lessons I have learnt travelling to my life back home: I could write a million things here, but for the sake of being short and sweet I wouldn’t say I have managed this, at all. But that isn’t to say I wont.

10. Keep trying new things and pushing myself: Definitely, it’s been a crazy waltzer year with a ton of adapting and being flexible and taking on new challenges. I am certainly barely ever in my comfort zone.

11. Get back in music: Oh so much. This year has been soundtracked by Future Islands, Haim, Boy, Dry The River, Jenny Lewis, Half Moon Run, War On Drugs and I even went to THREE whole gigs – a 300% improvement on 2013.

12. STOP saying “Oh my God”: I think I finally did it. My chat is now peppered with a lot more crikeys and blimeys.

13. Daily Records: This year I turned 30 and I documented it on Instagram with a photo a day, and my own cheesy hashtag #beeing30. Check out the serious side eye this giant tortoise is giving me!

2015 Resolutions

01. Deal with my anxiety. I might write a longer blog about this at some point (if that sounds interesting?) but… Worry wart, highly strung, nervous disposition. Call it what you will, I am constantly battling to reign my anxiety in, and it’s exhausting. When I quit my job and travelled to some of the worlds most remote and dangerous countries, you would think I’d have been at my PEAK anxiety right? Wrong! It was such a joy to have day after day after day of clear headed cool as a cucumber living. I think it was almost a flooding effect, where there was so much to potentially worry about (and trust me I did before we left – what if the coach crashes? what if I get bitten by a poisonous spider? what if our tiny plane crashes? what if we get kidnapped? etc etc etc) that I actually just shut down that side of my brain and didn’t worry about any of it. I think most people would be surprised to hear I’m anxious, because I put on quite a good efficient front and in a warped kind of way I think I only am so efficient because I worry and angst and get things fixed. I definitely go through phases of being better than others; but the standard pattern is that I am a) either worrying about something legit such as friend/family problems, work issues or big life stuff or in the absence of these I b) worry about things like yknow, my illness, death, why the hell we are stuck on this planet in the middle of space… It’s ridiculous! I have conversations in my head I know I’ll never dare translate to real life, I get paranoid, I lay awake churning over the same things again and again. So! It’s definitely time to take control and do the things I know alleviate my worrying. Sadly, heading to Latin America again isn’t on the cards so it’s more mindfullness focussed; such as doing meditation at least twice a week (head space app ilu) sticking to regular pilates and basically being kind and admitting that some days I just need to not do everything, perfectly, right now. If any other fellow anxious-types reading this have any hints or tips that work for them please hit me with it!

02. Sort out my organisational approach I initially wrote “be organised” here, but I am ridiculously organised so that’s not the right way to phrase it. My problem is that I am organised in different ways and places for different areas of my life. For example I use my phone calender and notes sections for some things, paper diaries for others, Evernote for work and I have a nifty anti-bride planner for wedding stuff. But! A colleague at work recently introduced me to ToDoist which I think is finally the solution. I have spent the Christmas break transferring all of my life lists and chores onto it (hello Monica from Friends style fun); with colour coding, different folders and tags for work/home stuff and it’s already making me feel so zen. Planning a wedding (especially a pretty budget DIY one where we are stubbornly doing most of it ourselves) has the potential to become stressful and I really don’t want anything about my wedding to feel stressful; so I think delegation (haha, thanks already to people like Craig aka our Creative Director and Cindy our shout-at-people-and-get-them-to-move-around-er) and organisation is key to stop is becoming a last minute panic. Every day my shiny new To Doist delivers me a synced to-do list on my laptop, Outlook, iPad and phone and I work my way through them. Sometime I put things like take a bath and drink tea just to make sure I tick a decent amount off.

03. Get married. Just a little one. Sometimes I just feel like everything starts and ends with Nick, I’m so in awe of him every single day. I cannot wait to legally stick myself to him forEVERRRR (and of course throw a massive party and wear a nice frock)

04. Read 52 books. I think it might be optimistic to attempt one a week now that I am busier and not on the road; but I’ll give it a try and may just chuck in a few thinner books here and there, as I tend to go for total whoppers.

05. Keep blogging! It’s hard being a greedy guts with two different blogs. I’d like to think most people follow both, but when I’m active on Twentysomething Burnouts I am aware that this blog suffers with periods of radio silence. I actually (shhhh) enjoy writing here as it’s more personal and cathartic, so for the sake of getting ~feelings~ off my chest I need to make sure I still touch in here regularly.

06. Get back into the blogging community. I still read my favourite blogs regularly, but as I am mostly reading them on my phone when sat about somewhere I am dreadful at commenting and sharing the love. I need to set aside a bit more time to do this!

07. Get in shape! What a cliche. Don’t worry, I’m not talking fad diets or anything that involves me buying a ton of January shred type books… but I have eaten so much over Christmas that I didn’t fit into the PJ bottoms that I wore at the start of the holidays! I can’t even look at another crisp, peanut or chocolate. I also have a gym subscription and didn’t enter the gym ONCE in December; oh no actually I went in once to use the vending machine and then left, which says it ALL. I know I’m happier when I’m exercising regularly and when my clothes aren’t on the tighter side, plus I want to feel my most confident on my wedding day (I know, I know) so I’ll be trying to eat more spinach, less cake for 2015. That said, as if I’d EVER give up cheeseburgers, so it won’t all be rabbit food.

08. Drink more water. Why do I hate water? I need to sort this out! I have a pint of the stuff evil eye-ing me right now and I a just thinking WHY ARE YOU NOT AS FUN AS DRINKING A BELLINI.

09. Keep up daily records. I am doing my photo a day thing on Instagram, this year under the even cheesier tag #beeinghorton as it’s the year I become Mrs Horton (how weird is that!) because I enjoyed it so much last year. I also have my Q&A book which I fill out every night, and now that it’s in its 3rd year it’s so interesting to read my answers from previous years and how much my perspectives alter and shift.

10. Go snorkelling again! This was something I never expected to fall in love with but absolutely did. The most peaceful I’ve ever felt in my life was swimming under water with a giant sea turtle brushing against my belly and a giant ray circling over the top of me. I think I might have been a mermaid in a former life (which explains why I am never happier than when I am in the bath. Today I propped the iPad up against the taps and watched 2 hours of The Good Wife whilst my skin went prune-y) Hopefully we will decide on a honeymoon destination that has snorkelling as a potential activity, alongside a lot of chilling out.

11. Visit my friend in Berlin. My oldest school friend Sarah lives in Berlin and has for 4 years or something ridiculous. Every year I say I’ll visit, every year I fail, and it’s crummy behaviour. So this spring I will put my money where my mouth is and actually make it over there and learn all about what has made the city capture her from me for so long.

12. Send more snail mail. Some of my best friends are scattered all over the world now; and I love nothing more than sending out care packages of british bits and tidbits of news, but am so bad at getting organised enough to do it. Maybe I need a new To Do-ist folder…

13. Climb a mountain. I’m about to join a mountaineering club which is very exciting and feels like something out of Victorian times, attending socials and heading off on some expeditions. I have some great walking boots now and I quite fancy making Snowdon actually happen this summer. Any excuse to eat Kendal Mint Cake!

14. Be kind. To myself and everyone else. Sometimes it’s easy to forget this, even though I try my best. I need to remember to smile at people when I buy my coffee, and when I get into a meeting at work, and remember things people tell me and check in at important times etc.

15. GET A PET! Ok this is more likely to be 2016 but I wanted to make 15 resolutions for 2015 and you never know… it might sneak in as a Christmas present to myself or Nick. Preferably the feline kind.

As was the case last year, I think what I am most excited about is that I have NO idea what my life will look like this time next year. I’ll be married! ME! Who is this grown up person? We’ll be trying to make a home somewhere for the forever after, build a menagerie of animals and hopefully use our honeymoon(s!!) to see more of the world.

& That’s it. Have you got a resolution? Have you seen any other good bloggers list theirs? I’ve seen a few but I’d love to see more. Roll on 2015, I have a really good feeling about you being sparkly and shiny and super.

Sometimes you have years that just slope by lazily, without much changing from one end to the next. Then you get those years where your life feels unrecognisable from the point that the bells struck midnight at the start, to the point where you tuck into the Christmas tree chocolates at the end. This has without a doubt been one of those years for me, in fact it’s been the biggest year of my entire life. On the first day of 2014 I woke up in Panama City. I was half way through 6 months of backpacking, starting in South America and taking in 16 countries through Central America up to the USA. I’d already seen and experienced so much; but felt like I still had so much left to go. Due to being on the opposite side of the world as the year started, I had no idea how the rest of it would unfold. Where I’d be living, what job I’d have or what my life would look like in any way. I certainly had NO idea I’d be planning a wedding! Being a total control freak; the concept of having so little idea or handle on my future is something that would have used to terrify my. But that’s what I mean when I say it’s been the biggest year of my life; travelling taught me so much about my personality and boundaries and lifestyle that basically meant I came back a different (better!) version of me.

Anyway! I could ramble on about my ~feelings~ and ~journey~ for hours but I’m guessing anyone reading this is doing it through a Baileys or mulled-something haze (if not, why not?) so I’m going to keep it simple, and just list some of the big events of this year that I most likely failed to blog about as I have been way more active over on our travel blog Twentysomething Burnouts. I’ll try and keep them in chronological order!

Why are you calling me Beyonce? I said FIANCEE!

On the 25th January, not long into the shiny new year, Nick asked me to marry him (read all about it). We were enjoying a couple of weeks holiday from travelling (I know, how sickening) on the Corn Islands off the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. We’d had a lovely meal, then strolled to a secluded beach that we had visited earlier in the day. It was just as beautiful at night. The air was balmy, the sea smelt incredible, and we sat snuggled up doing some star gazing. And then… it happened! Although it’s obviously something we had nattered about here and there, I had rationalised that there was no way Nick could bring a ring with him, so in my head I had completely parked the idea of any proposal speculation. It’s the first time in my life I have been fully speechless (until I yelled YES!) He couldn’t have asked at a more perfect time in our lives and trip. Having spent every minute of every day for the 4 months prior; and supporting each other through close-encounters with scorpions, death defying boat rides, teeny tin-can aeroplanes and 32 hour bus journeys with no air con OR toilets… we certainly knew each other well enough to be confident we can take on anything else in our forever future. We get married in September 2015 and so far I’ve done a bit of planning… and a LOT of obsessively watching Don’t Tell The Bride as research.

A friendly face in deepest, darkest Guatemala

If I started writing about every highlight of our travels, it would go on for a hundred years and basically be Twentysomething Burnouts. If I started writing about every highlight with a certain Craig Heathcote in 2014, it would also go on for a hundred years. Therefore I will try to keep this section short and sweet! When we had initially announced our travel plans we had tons of people say they’d come out and see us at various points. Obviously then things like real life, work, holiday allowance and penny pinching get in the way; but despite all of those things Craig stuck to his guns and managed to wrangle over a week to join us out in the midst of Guatemala, a place I doubt would have been on his top holiday locations otherwise (to put it in context his mum kept asking, “Where are you going again? Guantanamo?” !)

By the time February rolled around, I have to be honest and admit that we were slightly waning. We had been travelling at absolute breakneck speed in order to see all of Latin America in a tiny space of time; and sticking mostly to overland travel. Two detours had held us up; the first being an excursion to the Galapagas (yay), the second being Nick’s terrifying back injury in Colombia so as we trucked through into Central America we were racing against time to get to Guatemala in time for our date with a VIP. We hadn’t had basics like hot water for 5 months. We were SHARING a pair of socks. We had gone a month without soap. Everything we were carrying around stank, had holes in it and was bleached with too much DEET contact. We were obviously still loving our adventure, but were fraying around the edges and this meant that Craig’s arrival was exactly what we needed! He arrived with a giant My Little Pony tote bag (soz Craig) that my sister and he had packed full of clean clothes, British treats and stuff to make us smell better. He had magical things like new music – we had been sharing 2 ipods with a total of about 80 songs for months. He had new news from home, updates on all our friends and just a totally different outlook on life. It was so special! You can read all about our actual adventures here and here. Those 10 days are an absolute highlight of our entire trip. Big beers, breath-taking views and places that constantly 1-up’ed each other, wild swimming, late night jungle nattering and being zoomed about in the back of a 4×4. Oh and the time a monkey threw a rock at Craig’s head (and luckily missed!)

Here we go again London

We were moving to Brighton, then we weren’t. We were done with London, then we weren’t. I wrote all about it here and despite all my previous grumbles with life in the big smoke, I’ve had such a fantastic time since moving back and am so happy that a few twists and turns of fate bought us back here… for now!

It’s my job to read books!

On the night we landed back in England, I couldn’t sleep. I had a serious case of reverse culture-shock, and a bigger case of jet lagging. Despite the fact I’d planned to avoid any semblance of job hunting for a few weeks of family time, it was 3am and I couldn’t sleep so I thought I’d just take a peek at the jobs on the market. I am so happy I did, because it’s then that I spotted the job advert for a role doing digital and social media bits at Penguin Random House; so after 6 months of not working or even thinking about work I had to attempt to pull together a convincing cover letter and update my CV. As a lifelong bookworm, it’s my dream job. I’m so lucky to work with so many inspiring people and just felt at home from my first day, it’s a very special company indeed and whilst there are challenging moments, it’s made life after travelling a lot easier to stomach. Plus, overtime is… reading! Who can complain about that?

Craigfest

We had only been home for a month or so when our Craig turned 30! And luckily for all his friends, he did it in serious style. We rented out a beautiful venue in Dorset (um I think…my southern geography is so dire) for a couple of nights. There were bands (including Chime Hours), dancing, ping pong, walks in the beautiful grounds, bonfire, marshmallow toasting and all bunking down in dorms with lots of chattering late into the night/morning. And not even the British weather could dampen the party!

Not such a Twentysomething Burnout anymore

I turned 30 in May, officially hanging up my right to call myself a twentysomething burnout. I wrote about it here da da DAAAAAAA, but have come to the conclusion that the hype, fear and build up to 30 is so much worse than actually being 30 itself. In fact being 30 is absolutely no different to being 29, funnily enough! I was a total spoilt brat and milked my birthday for months. I am lucky enough that my eldest sibling Meg is my decade twin, and turned 40 this year. This meant we could throw a party for all of our friends, which Meg masterminded and did all the hard work on whilst I was still backpacking about; an amazing present in itself. The party was 80s Vs 90s movie themed… which sounds niche but it was amazing how inventive our lovely guests were. We had Ghostbusters… The Craft witches, Blue Brothers, Tank Girl, Marty McFly, Edward Scissorhands, THE TITANIC (!), Indiana Jones, When Harry Met Sally, Alien, Leon, Addams Family, Waynes World…. so many more. Meg and I took it in turns on our playlist with an hour of 80s, then an hour of 90s, and back again. I felt so fortunate to all my amazing friends who travelled from up and down the country to croon along to en vogue. The night ended strictly at 1am when the venue turned off the PA. But would we stop partying? No! And so my fondest memory is everyone insisting on screeching their own 90s hits super loudly until we were politely asked to leave… singing “this could be a case for Mald-ah and Scah-lly” at the top of our voices.

Nick indulged (without TOO much persuasion) my wish to go as Sarah and the Goblin King from Labyrinth, my all time favourite childhood movie. I bought an 80s wedding dress from eBay and he ordered a “Sam Fox” wig from Amazon. He even did an amazing hypnotic dance with the crystal ball in front of everyone. I think he really embraced a bit of Bowie! A super special memory from this year was that after the party we were staying at Meg & Eds, which was just a 15 minutes walk down the river from the venue. Having had a few G&Ts, I decided we may as well just walk despite the time. So I walked in my full on HUGE wedding dress, holding 10 helium silver star balloons, through central London at 1am. Everyone we passed obviously thought we had just got married (I really hope Nick doesn’t take that as a hint to don his Goblin King costume at the wedding for real) and we had people shouting congratulations, asking to take photos and taxis beeping their horns. It was a balmy night, and town seemed to be full of just friendly, well wishing passer bys.

Yorkshire Day

In the summer I had some holiday days to use up which coincided with YORKSHIRE DAY, the most wonderful day of the year! It was a great excuse to head up north and spend a week quality time with Lol, which I never get to do. We did lots of dancing, watching Ru Pauls Drag race, perfecting or telepathicness to the point of being too lazy to talk out loud, running round giant Asda, making nachos, eating nachos and gallivanting around the moors in the rain.

End of Cougar Season

In November Nick caught me up and turned 30. We went to Paris for a long weekend of real animals and skeleton animals (and eating lots of cheese) you can read about it over here and here. I also went on lovely trips to Exmoor, Sweden and Ghent, so haven’t really had too much time to get the post travel blues.

I am still stupid at 30

Just so this isn’t a boring blog of humble brag-ish boasting (ugh I hope not) I am still monumentally bad at functioning in life. I have had 2 trips to A&E this year, an infected horsefly bite oh… and lets not forget the time I managed to drop a pint glass on my eye from a great height – I was bending down snuffling about in the fridge and knocked it off the side straight onto my eyeball. Cue black eye for a week that gradually turned into a purple eye, a green eye and then a yellow eye.

This has been such a lovely post to write, it’s been so fun reliving the best bits and remembering just how crazy this year has been. I’ve focussed on the ups here, because they are the nice bits to re-live rather than being a moaning minnie. However that isn’t to say there haven’t been downs. It’s been a really hard year in a lot of ways. My battle with the ombudsman over my messed up surgery in 2012 has cast a shadow, as has the fact I will need surgery again (wah) and the pain I still have pretty much most days on some level. A lot of my friends have had tough years and it hurts me to watch the people I love go through rough stuff; even though they are all handling it in really inspiring, impressive ways and it’s usually me wailing away rather than them! I guess this is just to acknowledge the fact that whilst the year on the surface can look pretty perfect, it’s definitely been a huge learning curve in so many ways and I’ve been trying really hard to get better at coping with my anxiety and being a worry wart. Thanks for reading the blog this year, and whilst I haven’t updated as much as I’d like, I can’t wait to tap away over the Christmas break some more.